Along with other organizations that support police reform, the ACLU of Rhode Island has raised serious concerns about proposed changes to police body-worn camera (BWC) regulations being considered by the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety (DPS). In testimony submitted to the agency, the ACLU expressed strong opposition to proposed revisions involving the process for officers involved in serious “use of force” incidents to provide statements about what happened, and the timing of their review of their own BWC footage before providing a formal statement of the incident.
Currently, officers involved in “use of force” incidents must record a formal statement recalling what occurred before they can review their own BWC footage. Officers can then choose to supplement their statement. The proposed regulatory changes would instead allow officers to watch their BWC footage after only giving an unrecorded oral statement to a supervising officer and before providing a formal audio or video statement of the incident. This, the ACLU said, is a “significant change that creates the possibility of ambiguities in the officer’s statement, or disputes about the accuracy of the statement, that are not present when the statement is recorded.”
The proposed rule change, the ACLU said, “has the effect of undermining the goal currently codified in the rules: trying to ensure that an officer’s recollection and explanation of an incident is not tainted by a review of their body-worn camera footage.” The ACLU’s testimony highlights that allowing police to review the footage of what occurred before recording a formal statement could “only encourage officers to initially provide a generic, vague narrative that can later be ‘amplified’ or corrected after they view their recordings.”
The ACLU was not the only group to object to the DPS proposal. Testimony raising similar concerns and urging that the proposed revisions be rejected was also submitted by the Providence External Review Authority, the Office of the Public Defender, and Professor Andrew Horwitz, who is the director of Roger Williams University’s Criminal Defense Clinic but was speaking for himself.
The ACLU has consistently advocated for transparency in BWC footage, and supported state legislation that would in part allow the public to more easily obtain access to BWC footage for “use of force” incidents. Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of RI, said today: “Body-worn camera footage is an important tool for police accountability, but the proposed amendments do not benefit Rhode Islanders, or make police more transparent.”
A copy of the ACLU of RI’s testimony, and that of the other groups, is available here.
